Summit Mall Co. LLC, v. Lemond
| Decision Date | 04 December 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-1337.,02-1337. |
| Citation | 132 S.W.3d 725,355 Ark. 190 |
| Parties | SUMMIT MALL COMPANY, LLC; City of Little Rock, Arkansas, and Its Mayor and Board of Directors: Jim Dailey; Johnnie Pugh; Willie Hinton; Larry Lichty; Michael Keck; Genevieve Stewart; Dean Kumpuris; Barbara Graves; Joan Adcock; Brenda Wyrick; and Brad Cazort v. Russell LEMOND; Carolyn Palmer; Barry Vuletich; Essie Brannon; Hattie Daniels; William F. Hyatt; Wendy Ramsey; Hall Ramsey; Erma Bayley; Ronald Turner; Randall Hughes; James Jones; Joe Butler; Mildred Merritt; Deloris Brands; Alfred Cook, Jr.; Martha Cook; Alice Burke; Karen Roberts; Kenneth Roberts; Olene Brown; and Larry Reynolds. |
| Court | Arkansas Supreme Court |
Williams & Anderson LLP, by: Philip S. Anderson, Jess Askew III, Kelly S. Terry, and Sarah M. Priebe, Little Rock, AR, for appellant Summit Mall Company, LLC.
Thomas M. Carpenter and William C. Mann, III, Little Rock, AR, for appellants City of Little Rock et al.
Wilson, Engstrom, Corum & Coulter, by: Gary D. Corum and Nate Coulter; and Morton Gitelman, Little Rock, Ar, for appellees.
Appellants, Summit Mall, LLC, the City of Little Rock (the City), and the Mayor and Board of Directors of Little Rock (the Board), appeal from the Pulaski County Circuit Court's final decree and permanent injunction enjoining the City from issuing a building permit to Summit Mall or taking any other action with respect to City Ordinance No. 18,456.1 The appellees, Russell Lemond and the other landowners (landowners), live in some proximity to the proposed Summit Mall site. They filed suit and were successful in obtaining the injunction to block the mall's construction.
Summit Mall raises five points on appeal: (1) that the circuit court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, because Ordinance No. 18,456 should have been challenged under Ark.Code Ann. § 14-56-425 (Repl. 1998); (2) that as a matter of law, the landowners did not have standing to file the complaint below; (3) that the circuit court erred in holding Ordinance No. 18,456 void; (4) that the circuit court erred in rejecting its defenses of laches and statute of limitations; and (5) that the circuit court erred in ruling that Ordinance No. 18,456 was subject to referendum under Amendment 7 of the Arkansas Constitution. The City jointly asserts each point of appeal with the exception that the City believes the landowners had standing to bring their complaint. We agree with Summit Mall and the City that the circuit court erred in not concluding that the landowners' lawsuit was barred by laches. Accordingly, we reverse the final decree and injunction and remand the case.
The pertinent facts are undisputed for the most part. On December 1, 1987, the City's Board passed Ordinance No. 15,385, which approved a planned unit development and established a planned commercial district (PCD) for the property now referred to as the Summit Mall property. At that time, submission of the final development plan or a request for extension of time had to occur within one year of the preliminary approval. On October 3, 1988, an attorney for the then-developer of the Summit Mall property, Ronald Mastriana, wrote David Jones of the City's Planning Department and requested an extension of time to file the final plan. Whether he asked for a one-year extension or a three-year extension and from what starting point that extension was to begin are matters of dispute in this case. On November 1, 1988, the Board passed Ordinance No. 15,571, which amended the time period from one year to three years in which PCD developers, including the Summit Mall developer, had to submit a final plan or a request for extension of time to do so.
On January 8, 1991, Patrick McGetrick, writing on behalf of the then-developer of the Summit Mall property, submitted a letter to Jim Lawson, Director of the City's Department of Planning and Development, and requested a three-year extension in which to submit a final plan. On February 12, 1991, that extension was approved by the City's Planning Commission. A second three-year extension was requested by Mr. McGetrick on October 25, 1993, and on January 4, 1994, that extension was also approved by the City's Planning Commission. On February 22, 1995, Summit Mall purchased approximately 97 acres in west Little Rock for the proposed mall from the prior developer.
The City Planning Commission denied Summit Mall another extension of time to file its final plan, but on March 18, 1997, the City Board passed Ordinance No. 17,423, which permitted a three-year extension to Summit Mall in which to file the final plan for the mall. Almost two-and-one-half years later, in a letter dated November 15, 1999, Summit Mall submitted the final plan for review and stated that it was "a revision for an earlier approved similar project." After several deferrals in considering Summit Mall's PCD, the City's Planning Commission voted to approve Summit Mall's PCD revision on September 14, 2000. After three readings of the proposed ordinance granting the requested revision, including new special conditions, and public comment both for and against the request, the Board passed Ordinance No. 18,456 on April 3, 2001.
On May 2, 2001, the appellee landowners from west Little Rock filed their complaint against the City and challenged the Board's approval of Ordinance No. 18,456. Their complaint stated that the site plan for the proposed development approved preliminarily in 1987 by Ordinance No. 15,385 "included a 975,000 square foot shopping mall, three office buildings totaling 335,000 square feet, a hotel with 190,000 square feet, and two restaurant parcels totaling 20,000 square feet." The ordinance reclassified the zoning for ninety-seven acres of property adjacent to Interstate 430 and Shackleford Road in west Little Rock from office/residential to a PCD. The landowners sought an injunction prohibiting the City from issuing any building permits or taking any other action to implement the ordinance. They further sought a declaration that the Board's April 3, 2001 decision passing Ordinance No. 18,456 to establish a revised planned commercial district was arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, and an abuse of discretion, and that the Board's approval of Summit Mall constituted "spot zoning" which was not in conformity with the City's applicable ordinances, Arkansas case law, or federal and state constitutional guarantees.
The City answered, generally denied the landowners' allegations, and pled the affirmative defenses of failure to state facts upon which relief could be granted under Ark. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), laches, waiver, and estoppel. The City further asserted that the landowners were required to proceed under § 14-56-425 and, thus, the chancery court was without subject-matter jurisdiction. The City added that an ordinance like the one at issue is not a proper subject for referendum under Amendment 7 of the Arkansas Constitution.
On June 4, 2001, Summit Mall moved to intervene. The circuit court granted Summit Mall's intervention in the case. That same day, Summit Mall moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction on the basis that the chancery court (now circuit court) had no jurisdiction over claims for which there is an adequate remedy at law under § 14-56-425. Summit Mall also answered the complaint and cross-claimed against the City. It too asserted the defenses of lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, laches, estoppel, waiver, and statute of limitations. Summit Mall further contended that prior to its purchase of the 97-acre tract in 1995, the City represented to it that the property was zoned as a PCD and that the intended development of the property was permissible under this zoning. Summit Mall asserted that it had relied on these representations in purchasing the property and prayed that the circuit court enter a declaratory judgment declaring that its right to develop the property as a regional shopping mall was an interest protected by the due process and takings clauses of the United States and Arkansas Constitutions.
The City next filed a counterclaim against the landowners and acknowledged that sufficient referendum petitions regarding Ordinance No. 18,456 had been filed. The City requested a declaratory judgment that the zoning issue was administrative and not subject to a referendum under Amendment 7 of the Arkansas Constitution. The landowners answered and asked for a declaration that the signatures on the referendum petitions were valid. They further prayed that the circuit court order the City to hold a referendum election.
On August 29, 2001, the circuit court issued a letter opinion, followed by entry of an order, in which it denied Summit Mall's motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Summit Mall next moved for summary judgment based on the landowners' lack of standing. Summit Mall also moved for summary judgment on the merits of the landowners' claims and filed a separate summary-judgment motion on the referendum question. The landowners later cross-motioned for summary judgment.
On February 12, 2002, the circuit court entered an order which granted the City's motion to dismiss Summit Mall's cross-claim against it; granted several of the landowners' motions for non-suit and dismissed those claims without prejudice; denied Summit Mall's summary-judgment motions on the issues of standing, the merits, and the referendum question; and denied the landowners' cross-motion for summary judgment on the merits and on the referendum.
Prior to trial, the parties agreed to a stipulation of facts. This was followed by a three-day trial. On June 5, 2002, the circuit court issued a letter opinion, which read in part:
The City and Summit have raised equitable arguments of laches and estoppel against the Plaintiffs. Neither laches nor estoppel is applicable in this case. No amount of time would make the invalid ordinances passed since...
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